Grass Stains
by Leviathian
Summary: The years in moominvalley pass without notice, until they don't. An Aged Up story about how to confess to your best friend without ever actually doing exactly that.


Crossposted on Ao3

Im really just currently uploading all my ao3 fics into ff rn but i only have two to do so with lmao

have some trash i wrote at 4am because moomins gave me Feelings

* * *

The years pass without notice, until they don't.

Moomin looks down at his paws, having slowed to a stop in their absent minded weaving of flowers. The fur there is coarser, longer, less downy and new. He glances over and hums to himself. Compared to Snufkin's own rough paws, his are as soft and rounded as ever, untouched from everything but the grass stains currently dying them.

Gently setting the half finished crown down, he pulls them closer, flipping and twisting as he goes. All around, they are as lovely and white as they've always been. They are larger, however, and wrap around the flowers much more deftly than he could claim to in his youth.

His tail flicks once. In his youth... he isn't sure when he started referring to it as that. Isn't sure when the present suddenly became the past, or how he possibly managed to miss it. He again glances over, watching as Snufkin carefully plucks at the stems to avoid nicking them with his sharper claws. There's a bit of stubble along his friend's jawline now, coarse fur running along his skin where there wasn't before. There are more creases to the skin around his eyes and mouth. Laugh lines, even when Moomin so rarely hears it. His hair is longer now, alongside his fur, and starting to lengthen down in front of his ears where he hasn't yet bothered to shave it off, bridged across his cheekbones by a sun-earned stretch of freckles.

Moomin jumps a little when Snufkin looks up, eyes meeting his. He isn't sure how long he's been staring, just as he has lost track of his childhood. He wonders distantly whether he is still living it or has already left it behind.

"Moomin?" Snufkin asks quietly. When Moomin doesn't answer right away, he carefully settles his fishing rod between two loose stones and turns to fully face the troll. "Moomin," he starts again, and Moomin's fur raises along his tail and shoulders as the vagabond's weathered fingers gently touch his. "What has got you so lost?"

Moomin stares for a long moment at Snufkin's paws, still barely touching his own. It's long enough that Snufkin's tail lashes in the corner of his eye, and he twitches back as though barely managing to push away the urge to pull back. Carefully, as though the worn claws and coarse fur and calloused pads are something so unbelievably delicate, Moomin moves to cradle Snufkin's paws in his own. Just as he had himself, he slowly turns them to inspect them. Snufkin allows this without a word and Moomin is again struck by how time seems to have been lost to him, unnoticed and forgotten. The Snufkin of his childhood would never be comfortable enough, to allow this slow and easy intimacy.

It all has come full circle again. The Moomin and Snufkin of the past. The soft and round and curiousness of childhood, that suddenly Moomin is calling in past tense. His grip just barely tightens on snufkin and the mumrik shifts just the tiniest bit closer. "Tell me what's on your mind, Moomintroll," he asks, and it is not lost on Moomin how his tail stops it's slow lashing to settle, twitching, so close to his own. "...You look conflicted," Snufkin finishes. His eyes are unwavering, refusing to look away as he might have in the past.

Moomin sighs, looking down from Snufkin's eyes back to his paws, still cradled in his own— to the incomplete flower crown, laying in his lap, and the grass stains on both of them. For once, he can't look back at Snufkin's expression. He can't bear seeing the warm look in his eyes, the firm but soft line of his mouth. Looking down at his lap and seeing their paws barely dampens the warmth beginning to swell in his throat.

"We've really changed, haven't we, Snufkin?" He eventually chokes out. His paws are limp, stained green and shaking beneath Snufkin's. He watches as his friend slowly moves, hesitating only a breath before he slips out from under Moomin's paws and instead holds them in his. Their positions have been reversed, Snufkin cradling Moomin's paws as though the frailest of treasures, as if cupping two white blown glass butterflies. He opens his mouth as if to speak, and Moomin glances up just enough to see his lips quiver and close, stuttering around a word he hasn't yet spoken. His paws are warm around Moomin's, fur pleasantly rough against his own.

"We..." Snufkin eventually begins, drawing Moomin's attention back to the hesitant purse of his lips. "We are older now," he concedes.

Moomin looks down again, discouraged in a way he can't explain but Snufkin grips his paws just the slightest bit tighter and leans in, forcing Moomin to refocus on his words. It's never been particularly hard to do so, but right now Moomin is distracted— distracted from the warm, warm, warm heat of Snufkin's touch, of his eyes, dark brown and brilliantly heated in the sunlight and whatever this is; of the nervous flutter of his throat as he swallows whatever it is he's still trying to say.

"We are older now," he repeats, more firmly this time, "–and have grown taller, and hardier. We aren't children anymore. Things have changed, a lot." He sighs, a low, shuddering thing. Moomin can't look away from his eyes, suddenly. Can't tear himself from how incredibly fond and soft they look, molten and melting into Moomin's own.

His paws shake minutely against Moomin's before they tighten just enough to still them, just enough to manage to draw Moomin's eyes downward for a moment. The grass stains have smeared between where they touch, turning both of their paws a smudged green color that only further pronounces the way neither of them seem able to let go. "But does that have to mean everything has changed, or has to?" Snufkin asks, and something about the question sounds impossibly desperate to Moomin. Pleading for something he can't recognize. "Neither of us are children, nor have we been for so long, already—" his tail thrashes uneasily behind him. "But I— we—" he takes a deep breath, the sound whistling back out of him harshly. "Growing up doesn't mean growing out of what we have. Not everything is or needs to be left in the past; we still have— this—? don't we?"

Moomin grips Snufkin's paws back as hard as he dares, just wanting to still the way his paws tremble out of his control. Something unnamed swells in him, inevitable and heated, an encroaching summer storm, and Moomin wants to be utterly lost in it.

They hold each other, both biting their tongues, both barely breathing. It's hard not to hope, with their paws still together so tightly. Still sharing the same stains, with unfinished crowns in their laps.

"I—" Moomin manages, after a pause that feels so much larger than it must look, to an outsider. "We— yes." He pushes as close as he dares, side brushing Snufkin's. He can feel his paw relax in his own and can't help but let go of some of the tension he's again failed to notice himself carrying. "We still have the past."

He chances a look at Snufkin's expression, relaxing further when he sees nothing but open fondness and warmth. He tightens his grip again, just enough to feel Snufkin squeeze back. The storm fills him like a summer breeze. For all it's strength, he just feels impossibly full of warmth, like he's swallowed the sun whole. "Maybe something newwouldn't be so bad, either, though."

Snufkin laughs, low and oddly pitched, almost choked out. A tiny little rumble has started vibrating in his throat, just enough for it to reverberate faintly against Moomin's side. "We can have both," he promises, and settles fully against Moomin.

It seems silly, suddenly, to have been worried at all. "We can have both," Moomin agrees, and settles in.


End file.
